June 17, 1897] 



NATURE 



147 



Klein also hopes to help the engineer directly. The 

 problems taken up by University men are at present 

 without direct connection with practical needs, simply 

 because the latter are unknown at the Universities. 

 Klein wants to make these needs known to the University 

 teachers in order to make it possible to direct their 

 energies in the channels useful to engineers. Again, by 

 having at hand a technical laboratory, and having con- 

 nected with this all the intellectual resources of the 

 University, it will be possible to bring to bear on 

 technical problems such scientific power as is not likely 

 to be found elsewhere. 



To the same end he wishes to make important English 

 scientific papers on technical subjects accessible to 

 German physicists and engineers through translations, 

 and a beginning will be made with Prof. Osborne 

 Reynolds' paper on " Friction of Lubricated Bearings." 

 Dr. Rouths " Rigid Dynamics " will also be translated. 



It will be seen from this that Klein's scheme does not 

 affect the ordinary education of engineering students, 

 but that he takes a far higher flight which will not affect 

 the routine at the high schools. Indirectly it cannot 

 fail to raise the whole profession, the whole education of 

 Germany ; and if it is carried out in the spirit in which 

 it is conceived, and is ably supported by his colleagues, 

 it will have far-reaching consequences. 



That the original memorandum did not reveal the full 

 tiieaning of Klein's scheme can be explained by sup- 

 posing that he had himself suffered from the want of 

 direct contact with the engineering profession, and, 

 besides, by his taking it for granted that every one would 

 understand that he was speaking only of the highest part 

 of the education of engineers, and that he did not dream 

 of establishing a new engineering school to compete with 

 the old ones. 



As soon as he became aware of the opposition raised, 

 he tried by personal intercourse to put himself right, and 

 to destroy the false impression originally created. He 

 went to meetings of the Engineer's Verein at Aachen 

 and Hanover, in 1895, and expounded his plans, with the 

 result of converting many to his views. When he found 

 that the high schools were preparing schemes for labor- 

 atories of their own, he at once gave up all idea of asking 

 the Government for money, considering that here the 

 high schools had the first claim, and set about to make 

 private means available in English and American fashion. 

 He succeeded in interesting influential and wealthy 

 manufacturers in his cause, who formed a committee 

 which has promised and guaranteed him a sum sufficient 

 to start one laboratory. For this purpose the thermo- 

 dynamic laboratory has been selected, and is now in 

 course of erection. As to the choice of a director, he 

 has asked Prof. Linde's advice, who has recommended 

 a pupil of his own ; and all will agree that Linde's name 

 is sufficient guarantee that the new director has been 

 educated in a truly practical spirit. 



Prof Klein's plan does not in the least collide with 

 the legitimate aims of the technical high schools ; such 

 collision only takes place with regard to the education 

 of teachers, and here the claims of Riedler and others 

 seem to us to be altogether unreasonable. 



Klein is altogether the right man to carry out the plan 

 successfully. His singleness of mind is conspicuous to 

 NO.. 1442, VOL. 56] 



every one who has come, however slightly, in contact 

 with him. As a mathematician he is known and honoured 

 all the world over. He possesses a strong faculty for 

 geometrical conceptions, and likes, with wonderful suc- 

 cess, to clothe every mathematical investigation in a 

 geometric garb, or to illustrate it geometrically. His 

 book on the Ikosaeder is a brilliant example of this. He, 

 more than any other, has tried to remain in contact with 

 the school teachers of mathematics, and has often put 

 the results of profound mathematical speculations in such 

 a form that they become available for school teaching. 



To make the teaching of geometry more real he started, 

 when Professor at the Munich Technical High School, 

 the modelling of surfaces by the students ; and the whole 

 large collection of models on sale by Brill in Darmstadt 

 may be said to have grown out of this. For the same 

 reason, he has introduced at the University a course of 

 geometrical drawing. He dwells not less on the necessity 

 of developing facility in performing arithmetical calcu- 

 lations. 



All engineering teachers in England will wish that 

 English schoolmasters had been drilled in these two 

 directions. 



By descent, and from the environments in which he 

 grew up, he has, from his youth, been familiarised with 

 industry and manufacture. 



The traditions of Gottingen, too, are greatly in his 

 favour, and have helped to ripen his plans. Here Gauss 

 worked for years at all possible problems ranging from 

 pure abstract theory of numbers to the invention of an 

 electric telegraph, and of a method of signalling by the 

 sun's rays, now so e.xtensively used in the English army. 

 He enriched science as well as engineering with many 

 important gifts ; the theory of least squares, the absolute 

 measure of force, the theory of magnetism, and all his 

 work in connection with Weber. 



What Gauss did alone, that Klein wishes to continue 

 in combination with others ; he justly observes, also, that 

 a small town is more suited for his experiment than a 

 large town with all its distractions. 



We can only wish him success in his bold undertaking, 

 and feel sure that, even if German engineers should carry 

 their antagonism so far as to try to starve his undertaking 

 by preventing young men from making use of the oppor- 

 tunity he offers them, which is most improbable, there 

 will come to him, as heretofore, many eager students from 

 England and America. O. Henrici. 



A WELL-KNOWN TEXT-BOOK OF 

 CHEMISTRY. 

 A Manual of Chemistry^ Theoretical and Practical 

 {based on Watts' edition of Fownes' Manual). By 

 William A. Tilden, D.Sc, F.R.S. Pp. xvi -I- 599. 

 (London : J. and A. Churchill, 1897.) 



THE preface to the original edition of Fownes' 

 Manual is dated October 5, 1847. The merits of 

 that book, published about half a century ago, were known 

 to all. But, inasmuch as Prof. Tilden says in his preface 

 to the present work " the last traces of Fownes have 

 disappeared in the process " of re-writing, it is a manual 

 of chemistry by Dr. Tilden, and not Fownes' book, that 

 >s to be reviewed here. 



